Taking on the wins of the father

Picture: GETTY IMAGESSteve Richards hopes stability will bring results to compare with his father Jim's record.

V8 supercar star Steve Richards is banking on a new three-year deal with the Castrol Perkins team run by touring car legend Larry Perkins to bring him the stability required to make an assault on the championship.

Richards, son of Australasian motor racing's grand old man Jim Richards, is half of the most successful father-son duo in Australian motor sport.

Kiwi Richards snr shared the lead Holden Racing Team Commodore with Mark Skaife last year to triumph at Bathurst for the seventh time in all. He also has four touring car championships to his name, two secured in BMWs in the 1980s and the other pair in the fearsome Nissan Skyline GT-R of the early 1990s.

At 31, Steve has some 25 years in hand on his famous father and has not made a bad start in his bid to equal his record, winning on Mount Panorama in 1998 in a Falcon with Jason Bright and, in 1999, in a Commodore with Greg Murphy. He was also part of the quartet of drivers who took out the inaugural Bathurst 24-hour race last November in a Holden Monaro.

But he has not yet come close to winning a touring car championship, a situation he acknowledges he must redress before he can stand comparison with his father, who, although in his mid-50s, continues to carry all before him in the Carerra Cup championship contested by high-performance Porsche race cars.

And that is why Steve has been happy to sign a long-term deal with the Melbourne-based Perkins squad, a move he believes will give him personal stability and provide certainty for the entire team of engineers, mechanics and sponsors as they seek to develop the Commodore into a regular race winner.

"If you look at the leading teams in V8 supercars, stability is a major factor in their successes," Richards said.

"I have worked with Larry and the team for the past two years now and we all get along well. A long-term contract is a bonus for me but, more importantly, it gives both myself and the team the opportunity to build an exciting future together.

"We need that stability to make sure the entire package is right, and that extends to the sponsors as well."

"Richo", as the ginger-haired, New Zealand-born racer is known throughout the V8 paddock, has enjoyed a successful campaign this year, even if he has not yet managed to win a race. Such had been his consistency in the old VX Commodore that he stood second in the championship before the most recent round in Queensland.

But disaster struck at the Willowbank circuit near Brisbane when, running in the new VY Commodore with the new Holden Motorsport V8 engine, he had not one but two engine failures - in qualifying and the race - and failed to garner a point.

Under the conditions of the championship this year, he can drop that event from his final tally (all drivers are allowed to dump their worst performance of the season) but he knows that in the remaining six rounds, starting this weekend, there is no margin for error.

"To win the championship, we have to have a couple of wins and we can't afford to have any more dramas after Queensland. Every race will count, but I think we have got the VY on line and things will be a lot better."

Perkins predicted a bold showing for Richards this weekend following much work on the car's set-up in the weeks since the Queensland debacle in mid-July.

"We weren't very happy with the speed of the car but since the last round, we have done an awful lot of analysis and carried out quite extensive modifications to improve performance. We are certainly hoping Steve will be closer to the front than at Queensland."